Post by egoodstein on Jun 26, 2006 1:53:02 GMT -5
I'll try this over here. 
2 very fine new vocal albums and one instrumental.
CHRISTIANNE STOTJIN (W. JOSEPH BREINL), SCHUBERT/BERG/WOLF LIEDER . This is IMO a remarkable debut album by young Dutch mezzo-soprano, who has been making quite a splash at home and also in the UK recently. She has been compared most favorably to the young Janet Baker, and as this varied and interesting program of German lieder shows, that's not unwarranted. Baker was one of CS's teachers, and you do get a sense of 'echo' at times, though CS paces things a bit quicker and favors 'brightness' over 'regal,' dramatic declaration which Baker mastered so well I think. Stotjin is if anything a 'truer' mezzo than Baker, who to some extent pushed her voice up from a more contralto range. CS has a great honeyed tone, prettiness and a feel for the words moving with the music very well IMO. She and Breinl (a former student of master accompanist Graham Johnson) interact beautifully. The 4 Berg songs are rarely done, commissioned by the artist Wassily Kandinsky as musical 'comments' on some of this paintings. Not as cabaret based as Berg's better known early songs, there is definitely a merging here of chromatic ideas drawn from Debussy, Shoenberg's atonal experimentation, and German Romantic phrasing and mood which compares well with the early and late Romantic style of Schubert and Wolf (and draws I think too from Mahler's songs). Sotjin also takes on difficult tasks in the moody and nearly contrapunctal songs she chooses at times, like Schubert's "Im Walde (Waldesnachte)" or the 'fantasy/fairy tale' tale of an elfin king, "Erlkonig," rarely done by women. The Wolf lieder are from his "Morike Lieder" drawn from the poet Morike, who if not a great poet at the level of Goethe or Heine, has a musicality/'nature emphasis' to his verse. Especially moving here is the eerie yet beautiful "Mitternacht" I think. I should add for variety there're also songs of much brighter hue, if the mood throughout is serious. This album reveals a lot of treasures with repeated listenings. It has gotten great reviews, and I agree. She has a voice worth following if this record is any example of her talent.
VERONIQUE GENS, W. CHISTOPHE ROUSSET AND LES TALENS LYRIQUES, TRAGEDIENNES. Gens has sung a wide variety of work ranging from Canteloube's "Songs of the Auverne" to Berlioz to Mozart, as as here, Baroque music too. The French soprano I think is one of the more interesting 'lyrical' singers around. There's a slight 'frostiness' to her tone at times, but I think she's aware of that & makes the most of it. It suits very well the music here-- all work by French Baroque composers like Lully, Rameau, LeClair, Compra and Royer, and the inheritor and experimenter of that tradition, Gluck. There was a lot varied elements in French music then-- elements which would be fleshed out and transformed by Gluck's successors, Haydn and Mozart. All of the work here is unusual, rarely done except by narrow specialists. So it's interesting to see a non-specialist 'attack' it. The common thread here is these are all tragic heroines in various states of being-- from enraged to ecstatic. And Gens expresses all that really well. Even happier, her lower register is stronger and more assured here than on some other recordings I've heard, and yet she is capable of very precise and beautiful, elegant vocal ornamentation and controlled legato. There are some interesting instrumental interludes too-- and esp. strong string playing. And the arias/scenes themselves are unusual and well chosen, esp. perhaps the range and variety of LeClair's obscure work "Scylla et Glaucaus," and the comparison between Lully and Gluck's take on "Armida" which open and close the album-- composed about 100 years apart. If you like Baroque vocal music, I definitely recommend it.
JENNIFER KOH, CARLOS KALMAR (COND.), GRANT STREET ORCHESTRA, PORTRAITS-- VIOLIN CONCERTOS BY SZYMANOWKI AND MARTINU, AND TWO PORTRAITS BY BARTOK. Koh is a young violinist from Chicago, and here she teams with the interesting Grant Street Orchestra, who have been the 'bedrock' of the well respected Grant St. Music Festival there for over 60 years. These works by eastern/central European composers are fascinating extensions of the Romantic tradition IMO, and beautifully played by JK. The orchestra has a rich chromatic feel and beautiful rich strings not so far even from the sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra, but with too a certain reserve which I think suits the works well. The Szymanowski has a richness that recalls Mahler, but also some interesting quieter aspects that are important. Martinu studied in Paris as well as his native Czechoslavakia, and you do get a sense of both Dvorak and composers like Poulenc, Debussy and Milhaud in his concerto. The Bartok short "Portraits" are early, and in fact the first of the two portraits was reused in it's entirely for his violin concerto. Dissonance here dissolves into a more rhapsodic/chromatic sense, and as on the other pieces, the solo sections and orchestral sections interweave. Koh is very good I think at making her presence known by complex virtuosity, but also being a 'part' of the whole orchestral texture or extension of it. Unusual works that deserve this spotlight I think, beautiful playing by both orchestra and soloist. Ed
2 very fine new vocal albums and one instrumental.
CHRISTIANNE STOTJIN (W. JOSEPH BREINL), SCHUBERT/BERG/WOLF LIEDER . This is IMO a remarkable debut album by young Dutch mezzo-soprano, who has been making quite a splash at home and also in the UK recently. She has been compared most favorably to the young Janet Baker, and as this varied and interesting program of German lieder shows, that's not unwarranted. Baker was one of CS's teachers, and you do get a sense of 'echo' at times, though CS paces things a bit quicker and favors 'brightness' over 'regal,' dramatic declaration which Baker mastered so well I think. Stotjin is if anything a 'truer' mezzo than Baker, who to some extent pushed her voice up from a more contralto range. CS has a great honeyed tone, prettiness and a feel for the words moving with the music very well IMO. She and Breinl (a former student of master accompanist Graham Johnson) interact beautifully. The 4 Berg songs are rarely done, commissioned by the artist Wassily Kandinsky as musical 'comments' on some of this paintings. Not as cabaret based as Berg's better known early songs, there is definitely a merging here of chromatic ideas drawn from Debussy, Shoenberg's atonal experimentation, and German Romantic phrasing and mood which compares well with the early and late Romantic style of Schubert and Wolf (and draws I think too from Mahler's songs). Sotjin also takes on difficult tasks in the moody and nearly contrapunctal songs she chooses at times, like Schubert's "Im Walde (Waldesnachte)" or the 'fantasy/fairy tale' tale of an elfin king, "Erlkonig," rarely done by women. The Wolf lieder are from his "Morike Lieder" drawn from the poet Morike, who if not a great poet at the level of Goethe or Heine, has a musicality/'nature emphasis' to his verse. Especially moving here is the eerie yet beautiful "Mitternacht" I think. I should add for variety there're also songs of much brighter hue, if the mood throughout is serious. This album reveals a lot of treasures with repeated listenings. It has gotten great reviews, and I agree. She has a voice worth following if this record is any example of her talent.
VERONIQUE GENS, W. CHISTOPHE ROUSSET AND LES TALENS LYRIQUES, TRAGEDIENNES. Gens has sung a wide variety of work ranging from Canteloube's "Songs of the Auverne" to Berlioz to Mozart, as as here, Baroque music too. The French soprano I think is one of the more interesting 'lyrical' singers around. There's a slight 'frostiness' to her tone at times, but I think she's aware of that & makes the most of it. It suits very well the music here-- all work by French Baroque composers like Lully, Rameau, LeClair, Compra and Royer, and the inheritor and experimenter of that tradition, Gluck. There was a lot varied elements in French music then-- elements which would be fleshed out and transformed by Gluck's successors, Haydn and Mozart. All of the work here is unusual, rarely done except by narrow specialists. So it's interesting to see a non-specialist 'attack' it. The common thread here is these are all tragic heroines in various states of being-- from enraged to ecstatic. And Gens expresses all that really well. Even happier, her lower register is stronger and more assured here than on some other recordings I've heard, and yet she is capable of very precise and beautiful, elegant vocal ornamentation and controlled legato. There are some interesting instrumental interludes too-- and esp. strong string playing. And the arias/scenes themselves are unusual and well chosen, esp. perhaps the range and variety of LeClair's obscure work "Scylla et Glaucaus," and the comparison between Lully and Gluck's take on "Armida" which open and close the album-- composed about 100 years apart. If you like Baroque vocal music, I definitely recommend it.
JENNIFER KOH, CARLOS KALMAR (COND.), GRANT STREET ORCHESTRA, PORTRAITS-- VIOLIN CONCERTOS BY SZYMANOWKI AND MARTINU, AND TWO PORTRAITS BY BARTOK. Koh is a young violinist from Chicago, and here she teams with the interesting Grant Street Orchestra, who have been the 'bedrock' of the well respected Grant St. Music Festival there for over 60 years. These works by eastern/central European composers are fascinating extensions of the Romantic tradition IMO, and beautifully played by JK. The orchestra has a rich chromatic feel and beautiful rich strings not so far even from the sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra, but with too a certain reserve which I think suits the works well. The Szymanowski has a richness that recalls Mahler, but also some interesting quieter aspects that are important. Martinu studied in Paris as well as his native Czechoslavakia, and you do get a sense of both Dvorak and composers like Poulenc, Debussy and Milhaud in his concerto. The Bartok short "Portraits" are early, and in fact the first of the two portraits was reused in it's entirely for his violin concerto. Dissonance here dissolves into a more rhapsodic/chromatic sense, and as on the other pieces, the solo sections and orchestral sections interweave. Koh is very good I think at making her presence known by complex virtuosity, but also being a 'part' of the whole orchestral texture or extension of it. Unusual works that deserve this spotlight I think, beautiful playing by both orchestra and soloist. Ed
